Blog

[26 September 2022] Arguably no individual deserves the title of ‘doyen’ of intelligence studies more than Loch Johnson. An active participant in the management of intelligence in the 1970s, as well as a thinker and scholar in subsequent decades, Johnson’s meticulous work has shaped the thinking of countless students, practitioners and academics in our field. The most recent issue of Intelligence and National Security contains an extensive interview with Loch Johnson, which was [...]

[31 August 2022] In late July, Nikos Androulakis, leader of Greece’s center-left PASOK opposition party, who is also a serving member of the European Parliament, revealed someone had tried to bug his mobile telephone in 2021. A few days later, the director of Greece’s National Intelligence Service (EYP), Panagiotis Kontoleon, told a parliamentary committee that the EYP had bugged a telephone belonging to Greek journalist Thanasis Koukakis, who works for CNN [...]

[17 July 2022] Few terms in intelligence studies are used as often as “intelligence failure”. The fear of faulty information somehow being at the root of a wrong decision with far-reaching consequences haunts intelligence analysts and the agencies that employ them. And yet, relatively little attention has been paid to the responsibility of decision-makers to take into account the views of intelligence experts. In an article published on July 3 in the Daily [...]

[15 June 2022] For generations, intelligence analysts have been instructed to shroud their products in empiricism and the scientific process, and to shield them from emotions. The latter are associated with sentimentality, excitement and feelings, which, by their very nature, are opposed to analytical logic. But that dichotomy is false, and is not necessarily the key to arriving at successful analysis products. Don’t take my word for it. Read instead a [...]

[10 May 2022] Since its inception, Australian intelligence has strictly followed the British model: subtle, discreet and, most of all, avoiding any publicity —good or bad— by any means necessary. That is why, until very recently, there was no presence of anything resembling public relations in the Australian intelligence community. Even in our age of transparency, Australian spooks are rarely heard of in public. That is precisely why one should pay [...]

[20 April 2022] In the West of the post-Cold-War era, intelligence has typically been an esoteric preoccupation. That is neither good nor bad. It can be argued that healthy democracies should not prioritize intelligence and security matters, as a matter of principle. On the other hand, because of its openness, democracy is a fragile political system, whose security infrastructure requires much attention by all, especially in times of crisis. Recent events [...]

[31 March 2022] In the field of intelligence, success is always an ephemeral concept. It is here one day, gone tomorrow. Constant vigilance is required to ensure that accomplishments are more than fleeting moments in time. Take the example of the French intelligence services. Back in August of last year, many praised the French intelligence community for anticipating —and preparing for— the Western coalition’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan. It was reported at the [...]

[28 February 2022] On February 24, the largest country in the world invaded the largest country in Europe, marking the opening salvo of the most extensive military conflict in Europe since World War II. A cascading series of domino effects has since ensued, which include the most expensive refugee crisis in Europe’s postwar history. So far, the conventional theater of this war is unfolding along four major theaters, namely the Russian [...]

[22 January 2022] Earlier this month, the European Intelligence Academy, launched a new and innovative internship program, in collaboration with its transatlantic partners. The program operates under the direction of the Chanticleer Intelligence Brief (CIB) and the Intelligence Operations Command Center (IOCC) at Coastal Carolina University in the United States. This new internship consists of six dedicated Critical Mission Centers (CMCs). Each CMC is headed by a CMC Director. These directors supervise teams [...]

[30 November 2021] In an insightful essay that appears in the latest issue of the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (Vol. 34, No. 4.), Mark Lowenthal makes a provocative statement: “Intelligence is NOT about telling truth to power”, he claims. Initially, this statement might seem to fly in the face of the decades-long common wisdom in the field of intelligence. After all, intelligence professionals are tasked with finding the truth about critical [...]

[18 October 2021] Founded in 2016, the International Centre for Policing and Security (ICPS) at the University of South Wales (USW) is a think tank that concentrates on the European and international dimensions of policing and security. Although it specifically focuses on European Union institutions and agencies, as well as relevant policies and the law, it frequently extends its reach beyond the European borders. That was precisely the intention behind the ICPS’ recent online [...]

[31 August 2021] August 30th marked the inglorious demise of Operation RESOLUTE SUPPORT and the end of the NATO-led multinational mission in Afghanistan. For several weeks now, some of the “bread-and-butter” terms of intelligence analysis, such as “optimism bias”, “critical thinking”, and even “strategic surprise”, have been appearing with uncommon frequency in the headlines. Obviously, this rare phase will not last long, as the Memento-like nature of the neurotic news cycle [...]

[28 July 2021] Every country has faced serious challenges associated with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS?CoV?2) pandemic. But not every country has fared in equal measure during this trying time. Observers have noted repeatedly that a number of countries in Southeast Asia —among them South Korea, Taiwan and Japan— have been able to withstand the force of COVID-19 far more effectively than others. Why? Yi Chen Chang, a [...]

[05 June 2021] In a specially themed issue that came out in April of this year, the Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism explores the topic of “cooperation between academia and national security practitioners”. Entitled “Navigating the Divide”, this issue of the journal (volume 16, issue 1) hosts a collection of informative articles that examine the relations between academics and practitioners of intelligence. The European Intelligence Academy welcomes this noteworthy effort to explore an [...]

[23 May 2021] The first attempt —albeit failed— to use malware in order to extort a victim took place in 1989, with the appearance of the so-called “AIDS Trojan”. In the second half of the 1990s, many hackers continued to experiment with these methods of illicit money-making, and by the end of the first decade of the 2000s, the term “ransomware” was being used in the hacker lexicon. But these were [...]

[12 March 2021] In a recent article in The International Journal of Intelligence, Security, and Public Affairs, two well-read intelligence scholars argue that the European school of intelligence studies is quickly taking shape. The article, “Shaping the European School of Intelligence Studies”, was authored by W?adys?aw Bu?hak, assistant professor at the Office for Historical Research at the Institute for National Remembrance in Warsaw, Poland, and Thomas Wegener Friis, associate professor and [...]

[02 February 2021] The COVID-19 pandemic is changing the nature of surveillance —and by extension surveillance studies, an area of scholarship with which intelligence studies has interacted for decades. There is no question that, in almost every country, the need to track and trace the coronavirus disease has triggered an unprecedented growth in the techniques of surveillance. There is also little question that these surveillance techniques —which are primarily based on [...]